The transfer window is over, and if 4Lads and Heart & Hand not to mention Rangers fans one and all are to go by, it’s a big thumbs down for the work done this summer.
We saw only a single fan backing the summer work and the board over incomings and outgoings, and the-near universal rating from the supporters we’ve seen for the players added has been a completely failure.
The biggest gripe centres around the backing Gio’s had, with a belief he hasn’t been backed enough given the cash we clearly have.
And there is no question £15M spent isn’t exactly a fortune. It is, however, the biggest amount a Rangers manager has actually spent in one year since Walter Smith’s days. And even then, Walter didn’t spend as much as that over any 12 months in his second spell.
But the complaint isn’t the amount spent, necessarily, it’s been the use of those funds.
Fans see just Goalak, Tillman, and Lawrence as successes, and only one of them cost any money.
Souttar, Davies, Yilmaz and Matondo have been, for varying reasons, not value for the £13M they cost.
And this is bringing huge criticisms from these influential fan groups as well as the vast vast majority of supporters individually.
There’s also the issue of players sold – Patterson, Bassey and Aribo have all gone, with at least two of these being assets, and £50M raised in those sales – without a feeling that their funds have been used well, or enough.
Then we have the fact the squad is quite simply not fully fleshed out.
It’s thin everywhere apart from wing, with striker, midfield and central defence all massively undercooked and goals unconvincing.
We’re one injury away from being in real, real trouble. Lundstram, Goldson or Goalak getting injured is suddenly a disaster.
So do we agree with the criticism of the board?
No, actually we don’t.
We think the criticism is badly-placed.
It’s the scouting department who appear to have flunked.
The board backs them with the money, and trusts them to make the right calls – Ross Wilson and co then try to seal those deals.
Anyone who thinks the board hasn’t backed Gio with cash isn’t being fair – he’s had more this summer than Gerrard ever had.
But the scouting and recruitment has failed quite badly – in getting ‘MRE’ players and getting a balanced squad.
Gio tells the board what he wants, and it’s up to scouting and recruitment to get them.
The board backs all the above but their hands are tied beyond that.
Which is not to praise the board, because regulars know we’re hardly big fans of Stuart Robertson, among others, and we certainly disagree with a lot of what Douglas Park has done.
But we can’t blame this rather imbalanced window entirely at their doors.
There is no question Rangers’ squad is not the balanced and strong group of players it should be, and this window could have gone better.
But a lot of the blame of that is at Ross Wilson’s door it seems.
We made a fortune selling players, a good amount getting to Euro Final, we then qualify for C.L and this is the best we can do while even letting a decent/good CB (Katic) go while treating him like dirt. Not happy at all. We are going to be playing teams like Liverpool soon and thts the best we could do in the window ? Shocking !!
There have been too many failures around acquisitions for my liking, be it injuries or quality etc.
Seems to me someone in the recruitment department needs to improve due diligence when targeting certain players for the first team a lot better.
Hopefully this guy John Park will sort this out.
Doesn’t appear this way when you look at the recruitment recently for the academy & B team.
I think the transfer plan or lack of one has been well short of most of our expectations and close to catastrophic . We are woefully short of quality in key critical positions for the 1st Team and also for proper cover. Ross Wilson seems not to see these shortfalls . Unfortunately we will not be able to address any of those shortfalls now until January and even then availability of good quality players is poor. The financial picture is good for Rangers , but its not any use if the Team is sitting 5 points under the rotten mob and getting gubbed in the CL, this is where the board and GVB will have been seen to fail . We need another CH we need another striker we need a good goalkeeper, we need another quality midfielder but we didn’t get them so the outcome is not fucking complicated . I hope it sorts itself perhaps with Morelos coming back into the fold and perhaps the new signings actually contributing but it’s a massive fail from me .
Seems to be a lot of discontent ,considering we are in the CL and one point behind them going in to tomorrow ,lets see how we get on tomorrow .
We have excellent players in Lowrie, McCann, Yilmaz, Davies, Souter, Morelos, Roofe and Hagi to fill a bench besides fringe players like Davis and Arfield. That’s a very strong squad.
Quite frankly it has been a complete and utter disaster, all that cash to spend and only a couple of decent players signed, Souttar is a disaster, letting Katic go, another disaster, nobody wanting Alfie or Kamara, not surprised in the slightest, it was gut wrenching watching sky sports and the tarriers throwing money about like it is confetti, signing all sorts whilst we sit with our head in our hands asking why it has went absolutely tits up, l have zero confidence in our board and very little confidence in Gio, we will very soon pay the ultimate price for the lack of quality signings
It’s a fail for me whoever you want to blame. Tillman, Colak and Lawrence have really impressed me but Matondo doesn’t look like a player who is going to unlock any CL defences. He didn’t deliver more than one decent cross in midweek and mostly hit the ball straight at defenders. I have faith that Yilmaz will come good but he has to get that jersey off Barisic first. Souttar is doing exactly what he did at Tynecastle and nobody wants to update us truthfully why he, Davies and Hellander are nowhere in sight. After securing CL football and this is only my opinion but we should have been in the hunt for a decent international class no.1 and a solid centre back at minimum. We are now relying on Goldson staying fit until January and despite being our best option there he can be a bit of a bombscare. I don’t really feel like our board’s ambition matches our achievements on the pitch and we have to hope that they don’t regret that before the next window.
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